Page 125 of Wings of Destruction

“What’s the matter, Morgan? Are you having second thoughts?”

Kieran stays one step out of the way and slides his hands behind his back to give me an easier target.

“Second thoughts about what?”

“About hurting me. I think there is some small part of you that knows you aren’t a killer.”

“You.” I punch. “Know nothing about me.”

I kick and clip the side of his calf. His leg buckles slightly before he locks his knees, pivoting. Rushing him like a charging bull is a mistake. With the red edges creeping closer, threatening to overtake my vision, I’m hardly better than an animal.

I’m less effective for sure.

Laughter trickles like water against a pebbled shale shore. The others are watching us, Evie’s little creeps. They know Kieran is only toying with me before he goes in for his finishing shot. I have no chance of getting out of here without his permission, in whatever form it comes.

I lash out at him with my teeth and take him by surprise. He expects me to punch but not bite. Kieran rears back, his gaze narrowing, and I reach for the dagger again. Using my knee to hit against the side of his opposite leg to knock him for a loop.

Kieran moves faster than I do. He gets out of the way before I hit and steps up. One stride is all it takes before he grabs my arms and pins them to my side.

“Got you.”

Intent laces the words.

I hate his smug smile, the way the corners of his lips pry upward, tugged by an invisible string. His typical male ego gets under my skin. Almost like he knew it would. The smile remains in place without shrinking or growing.

It stokes the raw nerves with cold fingers. I stomp on his boot. The flimsy slippers have no sole to speak of, the better to keep the maids quiet and able to slink along the corridors unnoticed. It all comes down to intent.

I flex my foot and grind my heel down, managing some solid weight on top of his foot, and Kieran curses.

The smile is in place again instantly, as though it never dared slip in the first place. “You’re going to have to do a whole lot better than that if you want to⁠—”

“What?” I interrupt. “If you knew the things I wanted to do to you, you’d have nightmares for the rest of your life.”

I pictured ways to end him too many times for the fantasies of revenge to be anything less than lifelike and seeped in color and detail. Killing him will accomplish two things at once, I remind myself; it will destabilize his father’s campaign and erase my desire.

Right now, those two things are battering at me, each one demanding more attention than the other. Scorch me but I’m not sure which one is more important.

I can’t do what I need to do to avenge my village and my family if I’m distracted by Kieran. He knows it, too. Without words, he understands what he does to me.

He’s known the entire time.

He’d stepped in when his cousin played games with me in the cave, hadn’t he?

His arms loosen enough for me to slip through the band. I drop to my knees and roll away but the movement is unnecessary. Evie’s friends have closed around us, leaving me nowhere to go, and Kieran is less inclined to claw after me than I assumed.

My muscles ache, drawing tighter and more liable to snap under pressure.

Then he makes a small come here gesture with his hand, crooking his fingers toward him, and I do snap. I round on the infuriating man and lift my right arm, angling it toward his face.

He ducks to the side in anticipation of the right hook. So instead, I pummel my opposite fist into his gut. A slight oomph drives the air from his chest and he curves forward around me.

For show? Or did I do something unexpected?

It isn’t my luck. More than likely, he’s doing all this to egg me on, to get me ruffled enough to manipulate.

We’re surrounded by people but for me, there’s only the two of us. Kieran is the only one I see. My attention does not waver and neither does his. We may as well be in a dark room, the dark paneled walls our only silent witnesses.

Their noises of concern and arrogance, which might have egged me on once upon a time, fade into a low drone. The ringing in my ears helps me focus.